New Series! And a couple discussions..

Hey guys and gals, just wanted to share an update and ask some questions as well. Feel free to chime in..

My first series, Rahmarche Connection, was published today, and I'm very excited to have some fellow cachers get out there and sweat their faces off like I did on the three trips I made to place them. It's a 6-cache series in West Little Rock that I have been researching and planning for over a month. If you love hiking and exploring forestry, then you'll have a blast. The first two are not hard and bring you into the series nicely, showing the cacher that there will be some variety with the hides and containers. Don't be afraid of the parking waypoint...those of you who live in this area know that it's used for this many-a-time, just don't leave a "for sale" car there! The LRPD has no issue with parked cars for people enjoying the area, only with cars left for advertising. If you have a truck, feel free to park on the gravel adjacent. The rest of the information and details can be found in each cache's description, starting with this one: http://coord.info/GC4E8E8 - I hope you can make it out there to learn a little about the area and find some great caches in the meantime! If you have any questions or concerns with the series, please ask.

As for the questions...

I use my Samsung Galaxy SIII for geocaching, no official GPS device. This is a top-end smartphone and usually is spot on with navigation and coords. You should also note that this means I use the Android rendition of the Geocaching app by Groundspeak. It has its own pro's and con's compared to the iOS app. One of which is the live map - there is none on the android app. Not a big deal, just bringing it up for discussion. The second is a bit more frustrating. There is no way to grab my exact coordinates from the Geocaching app; when placing caches, I have to use another app (C:Geo) to grab my device's exact coordinates, and they are not always precise and vary even while standing still. This leads me to spending a lot of down time on a physical laptop on Google Maps, making sure that the coordinates are correct and correspond to the placement of the cache, as well as measuring distance between two points (no ability through app). I end up taking screenshot after screenshot on my phone of where I am in relation to roads, landmarks, and other caches when I place my own - then having to make sure the coordinates that C:Geo gives me overlap with the location that the Geocaching app says I am at. This brings me to a few questions:

What app(s) do you use for Geocaching?
What do you use to obtain precise coordinates, and use simple functions like distance measurement?
Would you suggest an actual GPS unit alongside my smartphone? If so, what are your opinions on products on the market?

I have not considered buying a GPSr unit. I view them as too expensive for the simplicity of what they do. Even the ones that can only be used for JUST geocaching are $70+, and have poor build quality, terrible interface, and not even a color screen. We're not in the 90's anymore, I simply can't rationalize paying that when my smartphone can put it in the dust. Regardless, I am sure there are some pro's and con's I am not considering. So, those of you who use these units, fill me in on some information if you will.

Two more random questions:

Where can I find ammo containers?
Where can I find small jewelry bags? I need to use them to protect logs, but nowhere I've been sells them, and if they do, they are usually too large.

Hahahahahah alway thought groundspeaks should include an official hide function.
However the home page of the app should show your location. If not, selec a cache nearby cache and go to navigate to cache. There should be a option to mark a waypoint.
There you go.

You can buy a box of small bags at Hobby Lobby or Michaels. I think that Bennetts Army Surplus store downtown is once more carrying ammo boxes although after losing a bunch of them I'm now using tupperware containers which can be picked up at estate sales, garage sales or Savers or the Goodwill. You can also pick up some other unique stuff for geocaching at those places.

Bags for Logs Walmart and Walgreens have pill dose bags, different size bags at hobby lobby. Bennetts and other army navy surplus stores should have ammo cans, also buy them on ebay and amazon. Which android apps to use cgeo does a good job and look at the satellite image to see if it jives with where you put the cache. Neon Geo for finding caches. One very important point about caching in ARKASNSAS, a good bit of the state has no cell coverage and phones even with good gps chips do not work so well outside of town in the woods. But if you are going to get a GPSR get a good one should run you $300

A great app for geocaching use is Cachesense. Although it costs $5, there is a 30 day free trial version. The added benefit to Cachesense is it also has the ability to display munzees on the phone's map.

The military surplus store outside of Conway (up hwy 65) is the best place I have found to get ammo boxes. I think I paid $4.00 for .30 cal and $8.00 for .50 cal boxes. I pretty much clean them out about 10 months ago.

I use a Gramin GPSMAP 62 for normal caching however, I have started using the app C:GEO on my Android and I have been amazed at how good it works, but two draw backs, cell coverage and battery drain. Batter drain bit me yesterday when I was about 150'ish feet from number 3 in your series!

If we are out and about and decided to cache, we like using our smartphones (Kim uses the Geocaching.com app) but if we are planning a trip or series type of day or week, handheld unit works best for us.

You did a great job map caching them. The ones I found were close to spot on based on my Iphone.
One more note the Google Earth app shows you the coordinate as well.
you #3 eluded my Probably too easy hid in plain sight for me to see.

I second the military surplus up by Greenbirer before Wooly Hollow State Park entrance, they also donated to the Daisy event last year. They also have other cool containers. I have also had good luck hitting that stretch between there and conway and from conway up to Beebe at those flea markets and such. Also Beebe has a huge outdoor sale on Saturday Mornings and you can find good containers there every now and then as well as swag to stock them with.

We got our Magellan explorist GC which may be the best bang for the buck and be exactly what you would want in a geocaching device. It is color screen (though it is a bit on the small side), has built in map (can not update custom maps or anything like you can the garmines or delorme) and it's paperless caching and can hold somewhere around 10k geocaches (less if you upload pictures and there is no expandable memory option). But I am able to run my gsak queries and upload all 7500 caches that I have found and have not into the gps along with the past 5 logs, hints, etc. I do not opt for pictures as I want the ability to load all the caches I can in it. we picked ours up for about $75 bucks New, the groundspeak forums.

You can also technically cache with a road style garmin/tomtom that has the built in battery and the large screen. I want to say you upload the caches as Points of Interest using GSAK and it will usually hold 500-1000 or more depending on model.

What I want in a android app is the ability to have a simple compass and use a wapoint file from gsak so no data has to be used and it will work when you don't have cell coverage.